


When we grew up, our shadows grew up too

by HeraldAros



Series: Oneshots, AUs, and Other Assorted Fics [3]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Gen, Haunting, Major Character Undeath, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 23:36:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17032083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeraldAros/pseuds/HeraldAros
Summary: The replica dies. That isn't the end of his story.Aka poltergeist!Repliku[Written 5 years ago, before replica-related speculation for KH3.]





	When we grew up, our shadows grew up too

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Sleeping at Last's "You Are Enough."
> 
> This is another fic I'm rescuing from tumblr, just in case. Very much unfinished; I have no current plans to continue this, particularly since KH3 is set to include the replica. Nevertheless, I figure, I posted it publicly on my tumblr, I might as well move it here.
> 
> With all that said, I let _Becoming Ninja_ sit in a Google Drive folder for seven years, and that one's getting finished this month. If I get some ideas for this, I'll remove the Abandoned tag and go from there.
> 
> Notes: according to the tumblr post, this is set after Dream Drop Distance, tentatively after KH3 (...lmao I just wrote out the Organization. Oh, sweet summer child.)

Like a cold, Riku figured that the haunting had started two or three days before he noticed it. Trivial things, like his shoelaces knotted together, his backpack or his homework or his pajamas not where he thought he’d left them, cracks in the ground tripping him when he’d never even noticed them before… It just seemed like a stream of bad luck.

And then came the nightmare, which in retrospect was less terrifying and more…sad. He’d stumbled into the bathroom wanting nothing more than to brush his teeth and then go to bed. His eyes had barely been open until he glanced up. Toothbrush in mouth, he’d met his reflection’s eyes.

His reflection had no toothbrush. His reflection also had bangs hanging in his eyes, while Riku’s mother had taken a pair of shears to his own hair almost a month ago. It had grown back some, but he was keeping his bangs short lest she decide to hack it  _all_  off next. His reflection snarled at him, and then rushed at him.

Or seemed to, anyway. Tried to charge, tried to tackle him, but once it left the glass, it was just…gone. Riku had backed up in shock, of course; he’d dropped his toothbrush and almost swallowed the mouthful of toothpaste.

He wasn’t  _suicidal_  or anything. He didn’t hate himself. The most he could figure out was that it was some sort of fucked up nightmare, but even subconsciously,  _he was okay with himself these days_. There was no reason for even a nightmare to include that little scene, and so he puzzled over it.

At school, Roxas was unusually amused for no discernible reason. That raised some alarms in the back of Riku’s head, not the least bit alleviated by Naminé sighing at Roxas and muttering under her breath whenever she caught him looking at Riku smugly.

Still, he didn’t start putting it together until his locker jammed for the umpteenth time and Tidus said that an angry ghost was haunting him. (This came after several days of Tidus, Selphie, and Wakka all trying to “diagnose” Riku’s newfound bad luck, including other such explanations as “maybe you pissed off a fairy!” and “maybe someone cursed you!” and “maybe someone stole your good luck!”) Riku might not hate himself, but there were several people who either did or  _had_  hated him.

The Organization was neutralized; Roxas wasn’t the culprit, as Kairi and Sora had determined several days before. (He’d been Suspect Number One after all his smirks, of course.) Nothing but dead ends there.

Maleficent was still a real and present danger. She might have cursed him, but she was no ghost haunting him, and so far, nothing had been deadly, or even very harmful—it was all just annoying, more on the level of pranks than anything Maleficent would inflict. Probably not her, then.

Xehanort couldn’t be behind it, for reasons that boiled down to _priorities_. Even if he  _wasn’t_  completely, totally dead (please, _please_ let him be absolutely gone this time), he’d target Aqua or Terra or Ven before he went after Riku. His apprentice was also out of the picture and would also go for people besides Riku. No luck there.

It took an embarrassingly long time to put together  _haunting_  with  _ghost_  and produce  _people who dislike/hate Riku who are dead and would bother_ , and even more embarrassingly, his own replica was the last person he considered. Embarrassing, in that the mirror incident was a big flashing clue.

To be fair, Riku tried not to think of his replica’s death very much.  _That_  was the sort of nightmare he was more prone to.

Once he figured it out, he got off his bed and went back into the bathroom. His reflection mirrored his movements but, again, didn’t quite look right. This time, he studied the face: Riku at fourteen was more like Riku at seventeen than he’d given himself credit for. The face in the mirror was a bit rounder; there were no bags under those eyes. The hair was just the most obvious difference between them.

“Is this where your heart went?” he asked his reflection.

The reflection scowled at him. The glass fogged up—only at the bottom—and an invisible finger wrote,  _FINALLY_. Then:  _OBVIOUSLY._

The handwriting was even more different than the hair. Riku hadn’t written in blocky, childish letters like that since elementary school, at the latest.

“How long have you been haunting me?”

His reflection—his  _replica_ —rolled his eyes.  _NOT LONG._

“Where were you before?”

There was a hesitation. His reflection disappeared, leaving the mirror blank—empty. Then, the whole mirror went foggy, and one word was written, painstakingly slowly, in the middle:  _DARKNESS._

Riku would be touchy about that, too. He’d never been a fan of his replica, but he decided he’d try to avoid bringing up bad memories or pissing off his replica any more than he already had. If the last few days had proven anything, it was that his replica could make life unpleasant for him; no need to give him incentive.

“Naminé and Roxas knew, didn’t they?” He was guessing, but it was an educated guess. Knowing that the replica(’s ghost?) was messing with Riku explained Roxas’s good mood, at least.

 _YES_. And the fog retreated to the bottom of the mirror again, revealing his replica’s smirk.  _ROXAS TALKED TO ME._

The  _last_  thing Riku wanted was those two becoming friends. He didn’t say that, though, in case it gave his replica ideas. “Can they see you?”

A frown.  _YEAH._  Then his replica…stepped out of the mirror.

It— _he_ —was translucent. Riku could stick his hand through his see-through double’s chest.

“Stop,” the ghost said, scowling again. “That feels weird.”

Riku magnanimously refrained from pointing out that the replica had done worse than  _make him feel weird_  the past few days.

“Why not just tell me?”

Arms crossed over his chest, the ghost floated a couple inches off the ground. “I didn't  _want_  to.”

Well. Riku had nothing to say to that – nothing nice, anyway. “So, what now? Are you going to keep haunting me?”

Again, the ghost frowned. (Riku remembered being fourteen, and never smiling.) “I can’t leave. It’s like I’m…tethered to you, or something. I can go anywhere in this house, but not past it. Not until you leave.” He looked away, and his fists clenched. “I can't  _leave_. I’m just…stuck here, doing  _nothing_.”

“You’re a ghost,” Riku pointed out, ignoring the glare he got for it. “What? It’s true. You  _died_ ,”  _I killed you_  was more truthful, but Riku couldn’t force those words out, “it’s not like we can reverse that.”

“You fixed Naminé and Roxas,” his ghost said, and for all that he looked angry, there was something almost hopeful in his tone. “Why can’t you fix me?”

A dozen reasons sprang to mind. Naminé and Roxas hadn’t really been  _dead_. They hadn’t been exact copies. They hadn’t been disposable. (He’d say they hadn’t tried to kill him but, well. Roxas.)

“Neither of them was a ghost,” Riku answered, “not  _really_. There might be a way to help you, but I don’t know it.” And he wasn’t going to find it, either—not for someone whose life goal had been killing and replacing him.

“Figures,” was all the ghost said, before fading out of view.

 _That’s that,_  Riku thought, but even as the words crossed his mind, he knew they weren’t true.  _That’s the beginning_  was more like it.

*

When Riku woke up the next morning, his replica-turned-ghost was nowhere to be found. There were no pranks, no stumbles or falls, nothing knocked over or spilled or missing. His mother kissed him on the forehead, bleary before her morning coffee, and he hefted his backpack over one shoulder with more trepidation than he’d felt even during the worst of the haunting.

Possibly, the late replica was planning something; possibly, he’d given up on actually haunting Riku. Despite himself, Riku was hoping for the former. If his replica started just ignoring him—or, worse, just faded away—well. Riku had a finite number of lives on his hands, and as annoying as the replica had always been, double-death just didn’t seem fair, somehow.

First things first, though: as soon as Riku got to school, he cornered Naminé and made sure that he hadn’t either dreamed or hallucinated the whole thing.

She made a face at him that  _strongly_  suggested she wanted to hit him but was refraining. “Of course he’s real! Do you know how long it took me to convince him to tell you?”

“You have to admit,” Riku pointed out, “it’s a little weird.”

“How’s it weird?”

“Well, if ghosts are a thing, why haven’t we had to deal with Xehanort’s?” That was actually bothering him more than he’d realized; now he knew why the space between his shoulder blades was prickling.

“Because Hades has it,” Naminé said, with perfect casualness. “Most souls go to him, in the end. The only reason your replica’s didn’t is because…well, he wasn’t exactly  _born_ , was he? I’m not sure Hades even knows there’s a soul to collect, here.” Her eyes narrowed at Riku.

He put his hands up defensively. “I won’t tell him.”

 


End file.
